“My IT head is a collaborative innovator”

Today, it has become imperative for every organization to find newer and innovative ways to perform their operations efficiently. Ravishankar, CEO and Co-Founder at Nevales Networks believes that as IT is the most powerful force for transforming business, IT leaders should leverage on this opportunity and be innovative to create greater business value.

Please tell us about your entrepreneurial journey.
The journey so far has been pretty interesting. We started the company with the objective to provide emerging businesses a secure environment to conduct their business on a ‘pay as you use’ model. There were three founders including me and our key focus that time was how to bring innovation through technology, people and processes. We started hiring people with the right skillsets, partnered with service providers and kicked off cutting edge security solutions and services as per the needs of client. Today, we cater to customers across the world and across business segments such as education, financial services, manufacturing, retail, healthcare, automobile dealerships, hospitality, engineering, IT enabled services and also received accolades for innovation.

What made you venture into the security space?
Information security has always been an exciting place to be in and the founders already had a grip in the security market. The demand for IT security products and services are witnessing an exponential growth especially in the last few years with the increasing malicious cyber attacks on the websites of the government and enterprises. All organizations require a strong IT security infrastructure so ensure that their vital information remains secured. It is in fact a central component and has to be reviewed, managed and directed with a proactive, meticulous approach.

How do you consider IT as an integral part of your growth?
Today no organization can deny the role information technology and systems play in their internal and external growth and development. IT is much more an enabler today and has emerged as a profit center. It is crucial to the entire business strategy. We are an IT company in the true sense and this makes us even more aware of the kind of storage, security, hardware and software we should have in place to cater to our employees, customers, partners and other stakeholders effectively. In our organization, we always encourage people to be innovative think out of the box, build a faster and efficient service framework for our customers. And all these require a robust IT framework. However, we also ensure that the technology should connect people and ensure business value and not run in silos.

What is your leadership style?
I would say a visionary leader (laughs) and more importantly share the vision with clarity to my team. We are a process oriented company and I always believe people should take an ownership in their work approach. We encourage teamwork as I believe a company cannot grow in isolation. Its technology, people and processes should interact with one another to bring about the desired results. I also believe in empowering people so that they come up with innovative concepts and technologies that in turn can help us have a competitive edge.

What role does the IT head play in your organization? Is he a technocrat or a business guy?
My IT head is an innovator in the first place. I would say a collaborative innovator who values teamwork. On one hand, he understands the internal process and think differently to create a competitive edge through teamwork and collaboration, while on the other hand, he is expected to understand the customer’s pain points and ease the pain point accordingly and meet their requirement. The bottomline is to ensure that technology or processes should bring in the right ROI. We expect the IT team at Nevales to think of innovations that are focused on these needs and the going has been pretty good.

What is Nevales Networks’ plan for the next one year?
We are bringing to market new offerings this year and also emphasize on increasing our headcount. Further we are optimizing our IT processes and network that would enable us to boost efficiency and also help us bring cutting edge technologies and services in the security space. Our entire focus is on training our staff to cater to the increasingly challenging security landscape.

What would be your advice to IT leaders to stay afloat?
IT leaders are smart and they are doing their job well, amidst the current business landscape which is volatile, complex and highly competitive. He should be a visionary and have the ability to translate it to create value to business. As technology continues to be a powerful force for transforming business, when used in the right way, IT leaders should leverage on this opportunity and be innovative to create greater business value.

While many believe CIO's role is evolving and that he's occupying a key place in the boardroom, a recent study brings to light that more than half of the CIO, CTO or IT admin staff (55%) are not thanked by colleagues for carrying out essential IT tasks on their behalf.